Reckless
by Vaecordia
Summary: "I suggest sitting down, ladies and gentlemen, this will be a bumpy ride."


For the prompt: _Alfred and Ivan are "working together" to complete a mission, but in actuality, they're trying to get the other one killed. And it's proving kind of difficult in the way like how Wile E Coyote can't manage to kill Road Runner._

If you want the same mood I was in as I wrote this, listen to the album Visitors by Lazerhawk - space vibes everywhere!

Warnings: Alfred can't and won't stop swearing, they're both jerks and dorks, and there's injury and violence. Only minor though.

* * *

"Why are you still so bitter?"

"You abandoned me on Zaskar."

"I thought you were dead!"

"After you threw me right in the middle of ten Imperial Guards, yes, I would understand the confusion."

"You survived, stop bitching."

"Only after I managed to harm six of them, outran the rest, hijacked a short-range capsule, navigated to their moon, managed to buy my way out of there and then locate you in the next star system."

Alfred raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, how'd you find me there?"

"I knew you would try to pull some stunt to attempt to get me off your ship." Ivan still did not lift his eyes from the screen he was swiping through. "I assumed you knew I have trackers in here," Ivan said as he shrugged innocently, his lip almost curling into a smirk at the outraged huff Alfred gave.

"You have more than one?!"

"Yes. I am not stupid." Ivan glanced at Alfred over the screen. It was hard for Alfred to really take Ivan seriously when he was floating upside down (in Alfred's perspective) and completely ignoring him. His long black synthetic coat was sprawled around him, almost as if fittingly surrounding him in a cloud of blackness (and innocently flashing some of his weapons at Alfred whenever the coat shifted slightly. Alfred had once thought zero-gravity was awesome, until the bastard he was stuck with ruined that, too. "Unlike someone."

"Don't start, Braginsky, or I'll eject you straight outta this ship right now and you can kiss goodbye to your sweet fuckin' prize or whatever."

Ivan snorted. "I thought the reason I am here is because you needed my help."

Alfred's annoyance flared, but he merely exhaled heavily in his irritation. He grabbed the wall and pulled himself towards the command module of _his_ ship, if only to do anything else than to see the asshole's face another second.

"Remember to change our direction, your angle is off."

"Fuck off!" Alfred shouted back, and Ivan was left alone in the general section of the ship. It was modest, not too big to be easily spotted but large enough for intergalactic travel.

Alfred dodged the random cables hanging from the roof of the ship as he glided through the sections and corridors of the ship - cables that he had been meaning to fix, but all in due time - and found the module. After inputting the new directions, he pulled himself into the pilot's seat. He fiddled with random buttons here and there, and kept checking the ETA.

Two hours.

He turned on the small screen set into the control board, before tuning into the update channel.

 _"The Imperial Guard is monitoring any and all movement into and out of the Cirris system, galactic standardised class 29903-RZZ, while Zaskar and its moons are under heavy surveillance. There are still no signs of the two outlaws…"_

Alfred checked the digital counter again.

One hour, fifty-eight and a half minutes.

He groaned, turning off the screen and letting his head fall against the back of the chair. Before he knew it, he was flipping the small light above him on, and off, and on, and off, and on-off-on-off-on-off-

"Are you really that desperate to avoid me?" Ivan laughed. Alfred cursed his own damn stupidity.

It had been barely two weeks.

Not even, a week and five days, and he was so fed up with his "partner" that he'd tried to kill him or have him captured or otherwise incapacitate him five times. No, wait, six, if he counted that one time when they stop to restock and refuel and he'd purposely called the Imperial Guard on both their asses. It had almost backfired when it turned out Ivan had done the same.

If he counted right, he knew Ivan had obviously attempted the same four times - but he also doubted the other three times were "accidents".

Just two hours, they would be in the building, he could off his ex-boss and then he could get rid of Ivan and continue on happily to the next highest-bidder-

"Are you even awake?" Ivan asked as he pulled himself in the seat next to Alfred's.

"I'm gonna get myself something to drink," Alfred mumbled and started to pull himself to the storage sect.

He should have known that Ivan's, "do whatever you want," sounded too happy. He wasn't even halfway there when one of the remote-controlled openings to a hydraulics system compartment opened _right_ in front of his face _right_ in the middle of the corridor where he was and that he slammed _right_ into.

"Fucker!" Alfred shouted to no-one as he held his nose, but when he was sure there was no blood floating around he slammed the door shut and continued onwards. This time, more carefully.

It would be a hellish two hours if this kept up the same.

Then, of course when he reached the kitchen facilities, Ivan's voice blared across the entirety of the ship.

 _"Why don't we just warp to the system?"_

Alfred simply ignored Ivan's question and went about opening a Basic Sustenance Package, or more commonly a Basup. He ate it, washing it down with some recycled water, before warily making his way back to the command center. When he arrived, Ivan turned to him with an expectant look.

Alfred looked at him like he had suddenly grown an antenna (although, Ivan did already look enough like the hulking Glathorians even _without_ an antenna, and Alfred would preferably not remember his one-time encounter with that bunch).

"Because we'd get detected?"

"Out here? Really? Have you tried?" Ivan asked, his hand gliding dangerously over some of the buttons on the panel.

"Don't you dare, unless you want us arrested before we even get to the goddamn galaxy- Ivan - Braginsky I'm warning you-"

Ivan simply smirked and flipped the lid off the green button that had once been labelled "Hyperwarp." However, there was no longer anything left of the text, seeing as Alfred had once been very fond of the button in some occurrences of high-speed, cross-galactic chases. He'd luckily grown out of that.

Now Ivan's finger was threateningly close. "I suggest sitting down, ladies and gentlemen, this will be a bumpy ride."

"Brag-!"

Ivan pressed the button, and Alfred could almost feel the increased rumble of the hydraulics as the nuclear reactor at the ship's core whirred to life, hydrogen fed right into its heart.

Alfred scrambled for the chair, the acceleration of the ship increasing gradually faster, and made it just into the seat before he felt his back almost melding into the seat.

After what felt like an eternity, the speed slowed down, and the moment he could Alfred slammed on the forward gas ejectors, releasing all the buildup of Helium from the reactor-motor, which - as it had been pent up at high pressure - released at such a high-speed the ship immediately slowed significantly.

Alfred breathed in annoyance, before his train of thought kicked in. He immediately turned on the E.-M. wave interceptor, switching immediately to search from gamma-ray transmissions downwards. If they had been detected, it was unlikely they were yet anywhere closeby, and so transmissions would have to be almost undetectable with standard-issue transmitters/interceptors, and would have to be high-frequency waves. Alfred had happened to call in a favour for an Elmag XI receiver (a tweaked model of the latest high-end electromagnetic transmission receiver), and _boy_ was he ever happier he had called in that favour. If Ivan had gotten them into trouble…

But as the receiver searched from exahertz frequencies downwards and found nothing, Alfred grew suspicious. Ever since that one hyperspeed accident because of coordinate-crossovers some years ago, the Transport and Commerce Agency had managed to get Senate approval to monitor any and all warps and demand that any hyperspeed requests be passed through them first to avoid such accidents.

Alfred glared at the radio as he adjusted their coordinates, before noticing Ivan had been oddly silent for a bit. Turning to look at the other man, he saw that Ivan was peacefully laying with his chair leaned far backwards, as if he had the least worries in the Universe. Alfred really did regret ever accidentally destroying Ivan's ship. Their first encounter had not been pleasant, but once Ivan had noticed that Alfred was heading the same way he was, he demanded that instead of paying for the ship Alfred get him to where he wanted to be. The situation got worse when Ivan got wind that Alfred wanted to murder the same person from whom Ivan had business with. Unpleasant business - and that had meant Ivan was more than damn pleased to accompany Alfred on his trip.

"What did you do?"

Ivan didn't even open an eye. "Me?"

"The fuck did you do to my ship? Why has it not been tracked?"

"I do not know, perhaps a burst of jumbled interference might have scrambled their systems, I suppose, too long to notice a slightly less significant movement across a galaxy." Ivan opened an eye. "Oh, look, only five minutes of the trip left!"

Alfred couldn't believe the nerve of the guy, but he had to admit that if they had not indeed been caught, then he had some brains. Alfred turned back to his command panel, grumbling about morons made in moon laboratories, before directing them to the planet that was already in visible range.

The next five minutes were spent in silence, Ivan having left to gear up (how he managed to carry so many weapons in that stupid coat of his, Alfred didn't want to know). Alfred finally made it in range of the control tower, and radioed his Identifiers (falsified, of course) to them and obtained permission to land. He pressed the intercom button.

"I need you to obey me 100% so that we can get there safely!"

It took the entirety of a minute for Ivan to reappear at the doorway of the command cabin. "You must be incredibly dense to think that will happen." As an afterthought, he added, "Probably more dense than a singularity."

Alfred glared at him, and as Ivan left, Alfred shouted after him. "Well, fuck you too!"

It wasn't long before they'd managed to land on the planet, and were weaving their way through the crowd to the tallest building in the entire city.

"So, what _is_ your business with him? You are a hitman, are you not?" Ivan asked as they made their way through the streets, lined with stalls of exotic and

"I prefer the term assassin, it has more of a professional ring to it," Alfred responded, merely indulging the other because he had nothing else to do. "And why do you care what I want with him? I let you do what you want and then I do what I want with him, quick and clean," Alfred said, though he knew very well Ivan wasn't getting anywhere _near_ his guy before he was either dead or in Imperial custody.

"Merely curiosity."

"We're here."

The building was daunting amidst the low-rising housing around it. Tall and dark, it rose high into a sky of molten lead. Its industrial steel-plated facades allowed small lights from offices here and there to peek out of windows, many towers. Alfred urged Ivan on, and they made their way to a service entrance of the building.

As Alfred fiddled with the lock, Ivan broke the silence. "Do you know your way around the building?"

Alfred hesitated. "I know the basic layout."

Ivan narrowed his eyes at Alfred's hunched back. "And what exactly does 'basic layout' entail?"

Alfred huffed as the door gave way. "It means basic layout, Braginsky, you're gonna have to _lay the fuck off_ if you want my help. Age before beauty," Alfred snarked as he let Ivan in first.

They entered the building and Alfred led them through the maze of corridors of the service sector. They stood out in stark contrast against the almost sterile organisation of the place, Alfred dressed in his biopolymer trousers and artificial leather jacket, with two guns at his hip and his otherwise rugged appearance, and Ivan in his dark coat, worn scarf and the multiple weapons strapped to his legs and the outlines of many others inside his coat. Perhaps they should have considered dressing less conspicuously, but now was really too late. And anyway, once inside the main sect of the building they wouldn't be so out-of-place.

They stopped in a maintenance room, Alfred standing guard while Ivan switched off the main alarms (the minor ones were easier to trip so he decided not to fiddle with them). He also placed long-range interference, so that whatever security was in the building's vicinity could not call for reinforcements if and once they were found out (both of them had a price on their heads, Alfred for obvious reasons, Ivan for theft, arson, smuggling, black market,... the list went on).

Once they came to the entrance hall of the main tower, Ivan immediately noted the appearance of those he supposed were security guards of the building.

There was also a very noticeable amount of Imperial Guards in the grand hall.

"Jones-"

"Shut the fuck up, I know," he hissed back.

Alfred simply continued ahead, and made his way towards the lifts. Ivan began having a hard time keeping up with the smaller man who had a much easier time working through the crowd of people than he did. It was only luck that he caught Alfred changing directions right before the lifts, because he'd noticed there were far too many guards near them (Ivan also held the theory that Alfred had most likely tried to get Ivan to run straight into the lifts).

Alfred glanced backwards and noted that his poor attempt at losing Ivan hadn't worked. He then headed for the stairs, knowing that each staircase led up only about five or ten floors, so they would have to switch multiple times - needless to say that concern for people's safety in case of a fire hadn't been as much of a concern for the building's architects as its security had been.

"We're really climbing all the way up to the top of the building?" Ivan asked as Alfred checked they hadn't been followed (as much as he wanted to hinder Ivan, _he_ didn't want to get caught).

"What, is that too straining for you? If you wanna stay down here by yourself while I go finish my business, be my guest," Alfred said and began climbing up the stairs. They were almost through the third floor when already the door on the landing above them opened and two Imperial Guards walked through.

A split second of thinking, and Alfred jumped over the railing of the stairs he and Ivan were on. He made sure to land with as much noise as possible on the staircase below, definitely attracting the attention of the guards - right onto Ivan.

He heard the snarled foreign curses behind him as he hammered down the stairs to the landing below and slammed the door open to the second floor, before hurling it shut and blocking it with a heavy potted plant that was right next to him. A second after he'd done that, he felt and heard a body impact the door - undoubtedly Ivan's - and Alfred dashed into the second floor. There seemed to be little more here than offices, and there were enough people for him to blend in should there be guards walking around. He thought it highly doubtful that Ivan would have gotten out of the ambush alive.

After having met the unmoving door, Ivan made his way to the floor below and found the door there, too, unlocked. He went through it, hearing the shouts and footsteps following him. The floor was almost completely empty, and - Ivan grinned as he darted for the trash chute. He opened the small door, and peered upwards. It went multiple floors above him, so he flicked on the magnetic attachment on his gloves and climbed through it in time to hear the door of the second floor bang open. He began climbing, and made his way up quickly.

Alfred went to the elevators, frantically pressing on the button going up and constantly glancing over his shoulder. Perhaps no-one had noticed there had been two criminals instead of just Ivan, so he might be safe for the moment. Alfred exhaled briefly and ran a hand through his hair to look less dramatic than he might have, with tousled hair and cheeks slightly flushed from bouncing around staircases. When the lift arrived, Alfred sauntered in ostentatiously, as if owning the entire building. The short Malrainian, whose scales flashed ominously in the lighting of the lift, eyed him with boredom as Alfred announced his floor - 67.

He wasn't actually hoping to get that far without having to exit the lift, but it turned out his exit came sooner than he expected, only on the fifth floor: security guards had entered the lift, and Alfred walked out as casually as possible. He knew that the security guards were most likely very dim cronies, but they sure as hell would recognise Alfred (his old boss had a pretty price on his head, and this wasn't the only star system the guy had investments in - his influence was broad). He mentally gave himself a five-second countdown and the moment he heard the tell-tale clank of the laser gun setting he sprinted. He knew there was an office with a glass ceiling on every floor (surveillance purposes, really, they were almost like two-way mirrors, except they were merely painted glass - always placed underneath conference rooms to make sure no weapons were strapped underneath the tables or anything).

Alfred tried to recall the layout of the fifth floor, and opened a door that led to someone's office. The woman stared up at him in surprise, before her shock turned to outrage. Alfred glanced up and noticed he was not in the right room, and instead made his way further down the corridor. After about the fourth try, he managed to finally find the room he was looking for and shatter the ceiling of that office with a well-placed resonance-inducing pulse - and by extension the floor of the conference room above it. He climbed on the metal railings that had served as support for the glass and pulled himself up to the room, making his way to the corridor outside.

Deeming himself safe enough, Ivan manoeuvred another door open, roundabout the sixth floor, if he had counted right, and climbed back out into a similar corridor, also empty.

Momentarily.

It couldn't have been twenty seconds after Ivan had landed on the floor that Alfred came busting through a door that led who-knows-where, winded and wheezing until his gaze met Ivan's hulking form.

Alfred seemed to pale considerably, and Ivan could have guessed that Alfred had most likely not expected to see him again after his staircase stunt.

"What a coincidence, Mr. Jones! We meet again, in such a short time!" Ivan chirped in an unamused tone and with a dry smile on his face.

Alfred's eye visibly twitched and his hand wanted to reach for his weapon, but Ivan's threatening look stopped him from doing so. Instead Alfred pivoted on his heels, and walked in the same direction from which he came.

"Alfred, could I ask you where exactly you are going?"

Alfred whipped back around. "Anywhere except where _you're_ going!"

Ivan looked amused. "You are really so desperate to avoid me so as to get yourself into custody for it?" he asked. "Certainly, be my guest. I suppose there will then be more fun for me."

Alfred inhaled deeply. "You're an asshole."

"Don't attempt to kill me so often, and I might tolerate you," Ivan responded as he began making his way back to the trash chute.

"Aren't you one to talk!" Alfred shouted after him, but began following him. "Where're you going?!"

Ivan simply began adjusting his gloves before opening the chute. "Up. You managed to warn them of the staircases and clearly the elevators too, considering you apparently smashed through a floor to get upwards. Rather inconsiderate of you, and rather lacking in sense, seeing as you want to get upwards as much as I do. So, I am going up."

Alfred huffed but began digging his pockets, searching for the suction discs and finding them, before following Ivan's lead. Once he was in and climbing, he realised a slight problem. "Uh, we're not gonna be climbing the whole way up, are we?"

He heard Ivan snorting, the sound reverberating in the hollow tube. "Is it too high for you?"

"Yes, it fucking is!" Alfred nearly let go of his discs in his incredulousness, but managed to hold. "Dude, it's like _seventy_ floors!"

Ivan fell silent, but after a moment continued climbing. "Which floor are we on?"

"Why would I know?"

Ivan rolled his eyes. "I merely thought you would care enough to count, if you have such an issue with going up."

"Just - fuck off, Braginsky, I'm going back in, and good fucking luck getting up there and outta here with your loot and whatever else 'cause I won't be here to help you-" Alfred ranted as he opened the chute again onto another floor, probably some five floors above their previous one at least. Ivan sighed and followed behind. Once they were clear on the floor and no guards were in sight, Ivan grabbed Alfred's arm and twisted him around to face him.

"Stop being melodramatic for a minute, and if you wish to keep playing our game, so be it. Whoever makes it to the top first can have their due first. Is that good enough for you?"

Alfred eyed him suspiciously. "Deal."

"Good." Without further ado, Ivan strode past Alfred and briskly made his way to the staircases. Alfred stared after him for a moment before trying to figure out some way to get up without using the stairs.

His gaze landed on a vent.

The air ducts would have to do for now.

Ivan and Alfred ended up crossing ways a total of six times in the next forty-five minutes.

The first time, Ivan had seen Alfred stare him right in the eye as Alfred simultaneously dropped a knockout-gas bulb into a room full of guards on a break, effectively nearly knocking out Ivan had he not ducked out of the room with his gas mask on in time.

The second time Alfred dropped down from a ventilation duct right smack on top of Ivan. There was some confused and flustered hissing before Ivan succeeded in shoving Alfred off of him.

The third time, Alfred had stumbled right into the midst of Ivan in close-combat with a set of at least five guards - Alfred hadn't really had time to count before he received a complimentary punch to the jaw. Ivan had quickly sorted out the guards and Alfred had managed to regain sensation on the left side of his face.

"What was that for?!"

"Zaskar!" Ivan hurled back at him.

Alfred paused to roll his eyes. "Still?! Get over it, man!"

"Not _quite_ yet," Ivan fired back before disappearing again.

The fourth time was when they spent three minutes arguing in the elevator before both were chased out around the twenty-seventh floor.

The fifth time, Ivan ran right into Alfred around a corner, and they ended up following one another for the entirety of two floors, with Ivan attempting to distract Alfred long enough to lose him (but never quite succeeding) and Alfred attempting more than once to drive Ivan into more-than-lethal situations (too bad Ivan had a habit to check the situation before diving into a room).

The sixth, Alfred paid Ivan back for the punch by swinging a detached piece of piping like a bat right into his gut (to be fair, Alfred hadn't known it was Ivan; he had come running around a corner when Alfred had been expecting the Guards chasing him to arrive).

Ivan arrived to the last floor, and Alfred was nowhere to be seen. After having knocked out whatever guards were hanging around the entrance to the main office of the building - his destination - he waited for a whole five minutes for Alfred.

There was no sign of him.

After an internal debate that lasted about less than ten seconds, Ivan settled for backtracking, making his way down the floors, risking his own neck with the possible chance of getting caught, only to try and find where in the Universe Alfred had stranded himself. After having run through three separate floors, he finally heard a sound that pointed him in the right direction. Reaching it, he was met with the sight of Alfred clearly trying to talk his way out of Imperial cuffs - five Guards had caught up to him, and Alfred (on his knees, hands drawn up, a sour look on his face and weapon on the ground with another pointed right between his eyes) was talking rapid-fire nonsense to them in the hopes they would tire and let him go. Ivan watched in amusement for two and a half minutes, before his amusement quickly dropped. One of the men had began wrenching Alfred's arms behind his back and the one holding the gun had cocked the safety off.

That sufficed for Ivan, and with no further introductions he slipped two knives into his hands and managed to off three of them immediately, the one holding the gun to Alfred's head first, another after a moment of struggling and the final one - the one who had decided to _manhandle_ Alfred - after a minute of uttering dangerous threats and giving him a broken wrist. Ivan finished him off before turning to the slightly dazed Alfred.

"What are you doing here?" Alfred asked as he stood up, still staring at Ivan in disbelief.

"I came to find you."

" _Find_ me?" Alfred's incredulousness was rising, but Ivan had already turned back away to go up and back where he'd come from. "Wait - why _find_ me?"

"Because I got to the office. You were not there."

"That's… sweet," Alfred conceded.

Ivan snorted, glancing behind him at Alfred before continuing ahead and shaking his head. "Don't flatter yourself. I cannot open the door."

 _Bull-freakin'-shit,_ Alfred thought, but decided to drop the subject.

They arrived safely back to the office, and Ivan allowed Alfred to open the door (it took nothing more than kicking the door in and dramatically announcing their entrance). The man was at his desk, reading over documents - as if he hadn't been alerted by fifty separate alarm systems of the intruders already.

Yao looked up. "Oh, finally."

Alfred rolled his eyes. "Why are you always so dramatic?"

Ivan eyed Alfred in confusion. " _That_ is your definition of dramatic?"

"He makes everything a powerplay, are you blind or something?" Alfred asked, and Ivan was honestly surprised at the sudden reversal of Alfred's entire demeanour. There was something about this man that Ivan didn't like, and that brought out something lethal in Alfred.

"Please, do sit down."

"We'll stand, thanks. We won't be here long."

"Long enough to kill me, yes?"

Alfred looked momentarily about to laugh, but then turned with a raised eyebrow and crossed arms to Ivan. "Maybe a bit longer than that, tell him about your business here."

"Ah, so you did not bring him merely as a decoration?" Ivan's confusion rose, and there was something in the air that made the hairs on his neck tingle. "Pity. I would have preferred not having to waste such a pretty specimen."

Did the bastard really just refer to _Ivan_ as a _pretty specimen?_

"I have my own fair share of matters to attend to and to sort out with you."

"Alfred has not told you then?" Yao asked, leaning back in his lavish chair. His dark, silken robe flowed gently with his movements, and Ivan began despising the man for his entire existence. Whatever for Alfred hated him enough to want to kill him, Ivan could completely agree. "How very disappointed you must be, finding he has used you."

Alfred laughed. "How disappointed _you_ will be knowing I _haven't_ fucked him, Yao," Alfred said with a frozen grin on his lips.

"I was not implying that you use every person you meet for… personal gratification, Alfred," Yao said. "If you are here to kill me, what for did you bring-" Yao paused, looking Ivan over, before turning back to Alfred - "him?"

"I didn't bring him. He tagged along."

"To kill me?" Yao had raised an eyebrow, and his amusement was clear - Ivan could tell Yao thought he was there to help Alfred.

"No, to steal everything you own and everything you have to your name after I kill you." Alfred glanced at Ivan, then back at Yao in confusion. "You're telling me you don't know who this guy is?"

Yao eyed Ivan suspiciously. "Is there a reason I should?"

"Allow me," Ivan interjected, "I'd like to introduce myself. Ivan Braginsky, trade artist and acquirer of rare items."

"A thief?"

"I have more charges to my name than just that one, but simply put, yes."

Yao hummed in understanding, but Ivan noticed the fretful darting of Yao's eyes as they moved from Alfred to Ivan. Alfred turned to Ivan. "Do you have any questions before I start on him?"

Ivan shrugged. "Not really, all I need is to get access to his computer database - naturally, he will not give it to me, but I can hack into it. So no, go ahead."

Alfred grinned and the both of them armed themselves - they knew Yao had to have some sort of reinforcements at hand, and they were not disappointed. After Alfred had shot straight at Yao's head, they were immediately assaulted on many sides by Yao's personal security ring, and everything unfurled from there. Neither of them had time to focus on anything else but their aim and their immediate targets.

Flashes of light, hypersonic bullets fired from all sides, chaos, and then silence.

Ivan throws another writhing, soon dead body off of himself, and stands. Ivan directed himself to the computer and dug a memory stick from his pockets, running the information-collection program and finding the necessary keys and contacts he'd wanted.

"I think we can get going soon," Ivan spoke, "right after I've finished. I would think it will be relatively easy for us to make our way out, there is a service corridor somewhere near. It is rarely, if ever, used. And-" Ivan paused as he continued fiddling with the computer.

He looked up.

"Alfred?" Ivan looked at the corpses, covered in blood, trying to find Alfred. "Jones, where are you?" Ivan called out, and there was suddenly a racking cough and a hand that lifted itself from the mess.

"I'm-" Alfred's voice came, and Ivan could hear there was something amiss. "I'm here!" Ivan left the desk, making his way to where Alfred-

Oh.

Alfred was trying to lift himself up, but there was a deep, brutal gash across his chest and a seared, burnt hole in his trousers and deep into his leg - a laser had struck there. Ivan's mind swerved to a halt.

It was only when Alfred grunted and groaned again at the pain of moving that Ivan moved. He made his way to the desk again, collecting his data and whatever else he needed before returning to Alfred. Ivan dropped down next to him and began helping Alfred to stand, and when he had one of Alfred's arms swung over and across his shoulders, he lifted the smaller man up.

"Braginsky, the fuck are you-"

"I will get you to your ship."

"You wh-" Alfred groaned again as he put weight on the injured leg. "That's just-"

"I _will_ get you to your ship."

"You don't even _like_ me! Why the-" Alfred was interrupted by another grunt, before he snarled, "fuck, Braginsky, I can't even fucking walk, _how_ are you gonna get me to my ship? I'll just slow you down, go tear down the fucker's empire or something, leave me here!"

Ivan refused to listen to Alfred, instead hooking his arm under Alfred's knees and sweeping him up.

"Whoa, hey no - what - _put me down!_ " As he squirmed and shifted, there was a fresh burst of blood from Alfred's gaping chest wound, and he hissed and snarled at it. "Ivan!"

Ivan merely moved to the door, not minding Alfred's sputtering in the least. And he made his way to the service staircase he'd spoken of, and only once had to stop because he heard shouting on the other side of the door.

"- you call me harebrained! And here you go, running around with a dead weight in your arms-"

Ivan rolled his eyes, before dropping Alfred to the ground and muffling his shout of pain with his hand. How the man wasn't so light-headed from blood loss already as to quiet down, Ivan didn't know. He held Alfred up against the wall, his hand still covering his mouth, and Alfred's offended mumbling was all that filled the empty stairway.

"Will - you - pipe - _down_?" Ivan hissed, and Alfred huffed one final time before shutting up. "Now, I will take you to your ship, I will hook you up to your med station, we will get away from this planet, and you will not complain. I cannot afford to lose you. So you will kindly cooperate." Ivan paused for a moment, gauging Alfred's silence before taking his hand off Alfred's mouth.

"Ew. Don't do that again," Alfred huffed as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, but Ivan merely picked him up again (the protests did not stop, but they were less obnoxious than earlier). Ivan managed to get them to a service elevator at some point, though narrowly missing a guard squad, and they were out of the building. Outside, no-one paid attention to them, but Alfred's shuddering and shaking breaths were becoming more noticeable to Ivan, and he knew that if he did not get to their ship soon there was little chance Alfred would be waking up the next morning - with all his bodily functions intact, anyway.

Even Alfred's rambling and complaining began turning more quiet, more absent-minded. Ivan saw the spaceship, and when they reached it he made a dash for the small med bay - granted, it may have been relatively small and barely enough to take on larger injuries, but seeing as two criminals were travelling on it with large amounts of illicit substances, Ivan figured he had more than enough to take care of whatever injuries Alfred had.

He hooked Alfred up to the life-sustenance machines, to control, regulate and evaluate his vital organs and processes, before quickly making his way to the head of the ship. He sat, started up the engine, and after he managed a rough and hasty takeoff with coordinates set he returned to tend to Alfred.

"'Van-"

"Alfred, I really would appreciate you not speaking at the moment," Ivan muttered as he flicked through different bottles and tubes and medicines and instruments, collecting some and discarding others as he went. "Your delusional ramblings would only distract me."

Alfred tried to laugh, but it came out more breathy than he probably intended. For a while, Ivan worked in silence.

Head down, cut the trouser leg, check the injury, clean, balm, close, bandage.

Glance up, check vital signs, heart rate stable, breathing ragged but steady, oxygen levels good, ventilation right.

Chest, cut the shirt - "mind the - _fuck_ \- fucking jacket!" - and tear, clean the wound, check signs of infection, clean it and sew it and graft.

Eyes up, follow the lines, wait for him to stabilise.

Stable.

Good.

Ivan sighed and stood, beginning to clean the utensils and put away the substances he'd used. He had also decided to hook Alfred on the second-most powerful pain medication, at least in this galaxy.

" _Man_ that was fucking _reckless_ of you!" Alfred wheezed, somewhere between laughter and mindless babbling from the drugs.

"Yes, thank you, I know that. You could simply thank me for saving you, but I suppose-"

"Dude…" Alfred started, as if he were realising something just now. He tried sitting up, but was promptly reminded of his injuries. When Ivan pushed Alfred back down to the bed, Alfred looked up at him with the clearest blue eyes. "Dude, you like me!"

Ivan sighed and rolled his eyes. God help him if he ever gave Alfred pain relief again - next time, he would let the man suffer in agony. Anything would be preferable. "I suggest you just go to sleep, now, Jones, before I knock me out."

" _Pffffffffffffft_ ," Alfred laughed. "You wouuuuuldn't!"

Ivan picked up the syringe and upped to dosage of Alfred's medication. Just enough to set him to sleep, is all. "I most definitely would," he grumbled.

"Mm-hmm, sure, right, you," Alfred was cut off by his eyelids drooping, a yawn edging to his voice, his train of thought breaking. "I got loads more to say - tomorrow, I'm just gonna, yeah," he finished as his eyes finally fell shut and his breathing evened out.

Ivan only hoped the medication had been enough to keep him high as a kite for the conversation.

Only the next morning, it turns out that it really hadn't.

When Ivan walked in, Alfred had somehow already woken up. "Morning, sunshine, you look like the living dead," Alfred said.

"Your life support and medical systems appear better than in most hospitals - how you are even able to speak after those injuries is beyond me."

"Hah, I'm too good to be injured for too long. Or to forget what I said yesterday - and how you _didn't respond._ "

Ivan raised an eyebrow, merely fiddling around with Alfred's tubes and cables and pretending to check his stats. "What of it?"

"Dunno. Just that first you came to save my ass from the guards, then you saved my ass _again_ when I was like on the verge of dead. Just sayin'." Alfred looked at Ivan with a smug grin. "All I'm saying is now that you're done with what you wanted to do in the first place, I know you need to find a ship and all, but well - you're welcome to stay aboard this one as long as you need."

Ivan's gaze faltered from where he'd been staring at the screen, and it drifted to Alfred before snapping away. "I will have to see what happens." He left the room, but two minutes later Alfred heard his steps return. "I suppose that I can tolerate your ship as long as it takes me to find one of my own."

Alfred resisted the urge to laugh. The man was stubborn as all hell, but then again so was Alfred himself.

Ivan ended up staying far longer than he'd originally thought. Every ship he found was not good enough - something was always amiss: not enough power, not enough storage, too simple, too complex, _no hyperwarp? Don't make me laugh_ , too unsafe or old.

It wasn't too long after that, that he realised the thing missing from them was Alfred.

It wasn't long - not long at all, actually, mere seconds really - after he told Alfred this (embarrassed scratch to the back of his neck and averted gaze and all to accompany the statement), that Alfred told him that his ship was getting a bit small for them both, to be completely honest.

And when they finally kissed for the first time, it was with the untamed fire of a newborn star, the searing heat of a solar flare and the explosive passion of a supernova.


End file.
